


Führt Liebe ihn zur Pflicht

by raspberryhunter



Category: Die Zauberflöte | The Magic Flute - Mozart/Schikaneder
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Friendship, Gen, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 22:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16314224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberryhunter/pseuds/raspberryhunter
Summary: The last meeting of Sarastro and Pamina's father.





	Führt Liebe ihn zur Pflicht

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zdenka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/gifts).



The young man who was no longer a priest made his way by moonlight to the top of the slope, to the large granite stones that from time immemorial had been placed there. He laid a hand on one of them. It was still warm from the sun. He knew the rocks well; as a boy acolyte at the Temple he had played among them, not thinking overmuch of their history or their sacredness, and when he had entered into manhood he had still come here frequently for solitude and for meditation.

From here, by the light of the moon, he could see the Temple below: the wide portals, the white columns. His heart twisted as he thought of all that was now barred to him. Though it was now deep night, he remembered the daylight ceremonies of the Initiates, and in his memory he heard his friends, the Initiates, raising their voices together in the songs of magic, the hymns to the Sun; he heard the clarion trumpets calling out the coming of the High Priest; he heard the deep voice of the High Priest set against all of these, ringing with its song of power, alone in splendor.

But all that was lost to him now, and the Temple was silent in the dark. All those friendships he had made with the others were broken now.

Except, perhaps, for one.

As he thought this, he saw the shadow slowly trudging up to the stones, hardly distinguishable from the rocky slope in the dim light. And he was glad, for he knew then that his friend remembered him still.

"Sarastro!" he called softly. The cloaked shadow lifted its head and swept back the hood away from his face. It was indeed the young priest Sarastro, his closest friend, who rushed towards him. They embraced. "O Sarastro," he said, "my brother, what happiness this is, that you are here!"

"Hystapes! I thought I might find you here," Sarastro said, stepping back from him a pace, and even in the dim light the pain and love in his face were evident. "It is great happiness for me, to see you one last time! But you must be gone even from here before the morning, or else the wards will destroy you."

"Yes," said Hystapes, and he was able to keep his voice steady, though his heart was breaking. 

"Hystapes, how could you do it?" It was almost a wail. "A dalliance would not have been so bad. There have been priests before who have strayed, and doubtless will be again; that would have been forgiven, would have been forgotten. But a secret marriage to the Queen of the Night, and a child within that marriage! The Brotherhood had to cast you out, had to strip you of your priesthood; you know we had to!"

"I know." He had known, the entire time, what the end of this would be; but he had done it, all the same. 

"I did not cast my vote for it," said Sarastro, looking very young, though he was only a year younger than Hystapes. "I could not, though they censure me for it as well."

Hypastes knew, none better, how hard even that small gesture would have been for his friend, who was despite his youth second in line to be High Priest. "I thank you, my brother."

Sarastro drew back again. "Was she so beautiful?" he demanded. "So desirable? Did she seduce you so far from the Temple's teachings that you forgot everything we had ever learned? You carry with you the sevenfold Circle of the Sun, you could have been the most powerful of us." His voice rose. "But how -- how could you turn your back on the Temple, on the Initiates, on me?"

"Sarastro," said Hystapes, taking him by the shoulder, "please, listen to me. It was not that, not only that; it was the song we sang together, the magic we made together -- " There had been nothing like it in the Temple. He knew he could not describe how it had been, the joy of it, the Queen's high silvery voice and his own lower golden notes together, two distinct and different melodies twining together into something more than either of them apart, her voice sometimes with the mastery, and sometimes his. "The Temple's teachings about women -- there are so many things they have not thought of. The Initiates are wise, but I think they must be missing part of the world, part of what glorifies us. See: we are of the temple of the Sun, but we meet by moonlight --"

"You are speaking blasphemy!" Sarastro whispered. "I will never forgive the Queen. I know the strictures say I must forgive all, but how can I? I will never forgive her for taking you from me -- from us, from the Temple. The Temple is right: women are not to be trusted."

"I have a daughter," Hystapes said sharply; "would you say that to her? Would you not love my Pamina, because she was a woman?"

"That is different," Sarastro objected. "No matter --" he choked -- "what the circumstances of her birth -- she is blood of your blood, and no matter what, I could not but love a child of yours, my beloved friend, heart of my heart."

Hystapes let out a breath. He had been waiting, hoping to hear those words. "Sarastro, my dear friend -- I would ask something of you."

"Speak," said Sarastro raggedly. "I will. If I can. I cannot bring you back into the Brotherhood --"

"No." He took a breath. "No, I ask something else of you. The gods have told me that I have not long to live." Sarastro made a violent motion at this, but stayed silent. "Oh, I have some years in me yet, but not as many as are given to most. If --" He hesitated. "When Pamina is ready, when I am gone, when you become High Priest, will you let her undergo the Trials?"

Sarastro had blinked when Hystapes mentioned becoming High Priest, but recoiled as he heard the rest of it. "To become one of the Initiates? A woman?"

"A woman," said Pamina's father, "but blood of my blood, heart of my heart. I have studied the laws and the bindings. There is nothing there that says she cannot. The Queen should have been able to undergo the Trials, with me at her side," he said, suddenly fierce. "She could not; the High Priest would not allow it. But my daughter Pamina -- promise me, Sarastro!"

Sarastro was silent for a moment, and his face was troubled. "Hystapes -- you are very dear to me, but how can I do this? Perhaps it is not against the laws, but I do not understand how it can lead to any good." He looked at Hystapes, and finally said quietly, "Help me to understand, my friend."

Hystapes nodded. "Look, Sarastro, and listen." He drew out the flute from his coat; the highly-polished surface glinted even under the dim light of the moon. He played, and saw that his friend stood still, entranced by the magic of the flute's song, the notes rippling and flowing in the darkness, as plaintive and affecting as a living voice, but more pure and sweet than any voice could ever be. Sarastro closed his eyes, and Hystapes knew he was feeling what his friend also felt: the magic of the flute did not erase sorrow, for no benevolent magic can or should wholly do that, but it brought with its music the love and the joy that are on the other side of any sadness, though not always evident in the midst of it.

"What is that?" Sarastro asked, his voice hushed, as Hystapes lowered the flute.

"In an hour of magic, the Queen and I made it from a thousand-year oak. Her song's enchantment brought the lightning to strike; my magic carved the flute from the struck-off branch. Neither of us could have made it alone; do you see?"

Sarastro was silent for a long moment. Then he opened his eyes and began to sing, his deep voice quiet, but surrounding them with sound.

And Hystapes' heart lifted with gladness, for he knew what Sarastro sang: the binding oaths of a Priest of the Sun. Though Hystapes was no longer ordained nor priest, he sang the familiar line above Sarastro, their voices matching as if a dual harmony came from one throat, and the power came, growing through the unity of the sound, to bind and hold Sarastro to his vow. _When I become High Priest and you are gone, Pamina shall have her chance to undergo the Trials. I swear it, I, Sarastro, through my love for you and through these oaths._

They sang on, and Hystapes smiled at his friend and yet grieved, for his heart told him that this would be the last time they sang together. Indeed Hystapes thought it would not be long until Sarastro became High Priest in very deed and name; then he would not be part of duets with any other priest, much less his cast-out friend, only raising his voice as a lone focus of power, or with the massed power of the entire Brotherhood behind him. Hystapes knew he himself would miss matching his voice with his friend, a different wonder than that of counterpoint with the Queen, and one which he must now forswear forever; and he wondered whether Sarastro would feel its loss as well, whether he would be lonely as High Priest. And he wove his joy and sadness into the bindings that he and Sarastro sang together. _Ah, my heart's brother, do not forget me! Do not forget our friendship!_

The last note died into silence. The two young men looked at each other for a long moment. Sarastro said huskily, "I will not forget, my brother."

Hystapes nodded, too full of emotion to speak, and the two embraced one last time; and then they left that place, going their separate ways, under the light of the setting moon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my betas, sprocket and justplainsavannahd!
> 
> The title ("Love leads him to duty") is from "In diesen heil'gen Hallen." One of the thoughts I had in writing this fic is that it would be interesting if that aria, as well as "Bewahret euch vor Weibertücken," actually reflected personal thoughts/struggles of Sarastro himself...
> 
> I eventually had to give Pamina's father a name. (I played with the idea that his name had been stripped from him as well, but that got too unwieldy.) Hystapes is ~~easier for me to type than~~ a corruption of Hystaspes, which is the Greek version of Vishtaspa, the friend/patron/disciple of Zoroaster.


End file.
